Alternative Universe
by omegaw
Summary: In yet another battle with surviving death eaters, Harry sacrifices his life to end the threat. Instead of dying, he is transported to a universe where he died as a baby to save his parents and everyone else is alive too. The quest to defeat V starts anew
1. Chapter 1: The Arrival

Alternative Universe

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling.

To explain the situation:

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry trains as an auror while he continues to fight against the surviving death eaters, who have managed to organise and wreak havoc on the wizarding world. On Halloween, at the official commemoration of the Battle, they launch a surprise attack. During the fight, Harry sees his friends and family die. In a desperate move, he again sacrifices his life in order to finally defeat his enemies and save what remains of the world he knows.

But Harry does not die. Somehow, he ends up in a parallel universe where he had been the one to die at that fateful Halloween 17 years back, while his parents, protected by their son dying for them, had survived. Consequently, Pettigrew's betrayal was discovered and he was sent to Askaban. With the additional help of James, Lily and Sirius, the death eaters had been rounded up earlier, so the attack on the Longbottoms and Voldemort's attempts to return to his former power during the following years were prevented, although most of it was kept out of the press in order to "not needlessly disturb the public" by orders of Minister Fudge.

Lucius Malfoy evaded prison but was under constant observation, so he did not dare to use Riddle's diary. Without this crucial clue, Dumbledore never figured out what kept Voldemort alive.

The Arrival

For Lily and James Potter it was the most horrible day of the year, of every year. They had never found a good way to deal with it. There was not good way. The events that happened on this day 17 years earlier were just too tragic, too deep a break in their lives. The best they could hope for every year was survival. While they now lived again in the house James had inherited from his parents, each year they returned to the little house in Godrics Hollow where Harry had died. Their closest friends usually tried to help them, sitting with them and trying to keep up a conversation. The first few years, Lily and James had not even seemed to notice them, clinging to each other's hand, Lily crying silently while clutching Harry's cuddly wolf to her heart with the other hand, James staring into space with a lost expression. They became better at hiding their desolation over the years, to the point where they could participate in the conversation from time to time, but the pain they felt inside was still as fresh and raw as ever.

This year did not seem to be different at first. Lily and James arrived at Godric's Hollow, and entered the house which was now a memorial. Remus and Sirius arrived shortly behind each other. Dumbledore and Hagrid came later in the evening, after the Halloween festivities at Hogwarts were over. While Alice and Frank Longbottom were close friends of the Potters too, their son Neville had been born a few days before Harry. Alice and Lily had gone through their pregnancies together and had shared the joys and excitements, but also the frustrations of learning to live with a newborn baby. Neville was a fine young man of 18 now who had just finished school and started a job with Planten, the biggest supplier of herbal potion ingredients in Britain. Lily and James liked him and treated him like a favourite nephew, but on this special day they could not stand to look at the face of their friends. The Longbottoms understood that without ever having actually been told and never joint their Halloween ritual.

The group had just settled down and Remus had asked Dumbledore about some details about their current werewolf initiative in the Wizengamot, when they heard a loud BOOOOOM. It sounded like someone apparating, only ten times louder and with a bright flash of light a body seemed to be falling out of the air.

For a second, no-one reacted, for while all of them were good wizards with 2 aurors and 1 former auror among them, they had not expected anything like this and were somewhat shell shocked.

No-one is actually not quite accurate. None of the 6 former occupants of the room reacted. The newcomer was a different matter. Even during his very short fall out of nowhere, he managed to twist himself in the air, so that he landed in a low crouch, bringing out his wanded hands before himself in a protective gesture, taking in the faces of the people in the room, shooting out a non-verbal shield charm and rolling behind the nearest cover; all of that in the one second the others were too surprised to move. By the time all of them had manage to jump up and reach for their wands, Lily and Remus had been disarmed and Dumbledore had to do some quick wand movements in order to avoid being strangled by the tattered curtains. James was casting a body bind curse, which was stopped by the shield charm and Sirius threw a stunner which bounced back and hit Hagrid (although thanks to his giant blood it merely slowed him down a little).

Dumbledore, after having dealt with the curtains, built up a strong but invisible magical wall, separating the fighters. "Stop it, all of you!" his voice boomed through the room. "Let's clear up a few questions before we kill each other. Who are you and why are you here?"

"Why don't you start with the answers? Who are you? And don't bother with trying to tell me you are who you pretend to be! I know better than anyone those people are dead." The people on Dumbledore's side of the wall looked at each other confused at these statements. The voice was deep, but surprisingly young and somehow familiar. In it, there was a wealth of anger and bitterness.

"We are not pretending to be anyone. We are who we seem to be. And as we have been surprised by your arrival, as I think you have noticed by our lack in reaction at first, why would we need to pretend something in the beginning?"

"I know you can't be who you look to be. Unless … where is this? _What_ is this?" The anger was replaces by confusion and some sort of … anticipation?

"You are inside the Harry Potter Memorial at Grodric's Hollow. This is the house in which Harry Potter was killed by Voldemort 17 years ago and where Voldemort consequently lost his powers and vanished. It is the anniversary of this event which his parents and their friends spend every year inside this Memorial to mourn their dead son." James and Lily both winced at this cold description.

There was a moment of total silence. Then: "No … no that is not how it was … it can't be …" The voice was almost inaudible now, but they could hear the utter shock in it.

"It is true! My son launched himself in the way of the killing curse on his toy broomstick in order to save my husband and me. Don't you dare deny this!" Lily was suddenly filled with rage at this stranger who had dared to interrupt their private mourning, had attacked them and now denied her son's death.

"But … but it were the parents who died to protect their son!" It was still a whisper and confusion now mingled with shock.

"Everyone knows what has happened here and not even the dead eaters deny that Harry Potter was killed by Voldemort. Now once again: Who are you and why are you here?" Dumbledore tried to regain the reins of the conversation.

"I don't know why I am here, I don't know where I am." Now there was some desperation in the voice. The young man it belonged to slowly rose from behind his cover and stared at them through the magical wall. "But I am Harry Potter."

AN: As you might have noticed I am not a native speaker. I am trying my best to not make mistakes and I proof read everything, but I am not terribly talented in that area. (There are some people who take one look at a page and tell you that there is a spelling mistake in line 14. I am not one of them.) If you find mistakes, please tell me so I can avoid them in the future. I hope you otherwise enjoy my story. I know the basic plot has been done before (which one hasn't with almost 342,000 Harry Potter stories on this site alone?), but I like to read different versions of it and I wanted to write one myself. Please review and tell me what you think.


	2. Chapter 2: Clarifying Some Basic Questio

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Clarifying some basic questions

For a moment nobody spoke. Everyone was staring at the figure, which could be seen clearly through Dumbledore's separating wall. He was young, not even 20 and he looked exactly like James Potter had looked at that age with 3 very notable exceptions. He held wands in both hands, his eyes were green instead of brown and he had a lightning scar on his forehead where James had none. All the people in the room (except for the intruder) suddenly had the picture of the little boy in their minds as he had been shortly before his death: green eyes, but otherwise already showing a remarkable resemblance with James.

Lily could not believe her eyes. This young man looked exactly as she had always imagined her baby would look like as an adult. Was this some cruel joke? Somebody posing as … as what? How? Not even polyjuice potion could make somebody look like the adult version of someone who died as a baby! Her feelings jumped between hope, despair and a raging fury at the fact that this _was_ impossible.

James simply stared, feeling totally empty. He could not process what he was seeing. Finally his mind focussed on the least confusing thing about the intruder. Two wands?

Sirius felt shocked but behind that, anger was rising. How dare this person pretend he was his godson? How dare he play with the sorrow of James and Lily? How DARE he?

Remus was confused. He knew it could not be, but his sharp werewolf senses were telling him something incredible. Behind layers of magic residue, blood, sweat, despair, sorrow, and fear, behind the traces of lots of other things, the personal smell of this man was a somehow more mature version of the baby-boy's smell he had not smelled in 17 years.

Dumbledore was intrigued, but ruthlessly shoved aside all of his other questions for the most important one. Was this stranger really who he claimed to be? "Your claim seems impossible and yet you look like Harry Potter would and there is no explanation for that. Let me perform a Lie Revelation Spell on you, while you state again who you are. There is no living wizard in the world who can bring a lie undetected through my Lie Revelation Spell."

"Dumbledore, don't fall for his trick! He cannot be Harry! He just wants to catch us off guard." Sirius almost growled.

"Sirius, he caught us off guard. He could have eliminated half of us when he fell in here instead of just throwing disarming spells. And besides … he smells like Harry …" As usual, Remus could break through Sirius' rage with his quiet voice and logic arguments and he slowly calmed down.

The intruder had ignored this interlude, staring at Dumbledore and slowly lowering his arms with the two wands. When he had them at his sides, Dumbledore prepared to cast his spell, but was beat to it by a sudden "Petrificus totalus!" from Sirius. The intruder was, of course, not moving at all, but his eyes were burning bright with anger.

"Really Sirius, what was that for? We just managed a truce here." Dumbledore was displeased.

Sirius looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. "If he is Harry Potter, he will appreciate measures that serve the purpose of protecting his parents and their friends. If he is not, he deserves worse." Almost 20 years of being an auror had made him very resolute in such matters. "Go on Dumbledore, cast your spell, I will free his head from the curse so he can answer your questions, and then we will see."

At this moment, the body bind spell was broken and the young man raised both wands. But he did not retaliate. "My parents died when I was a baby. I don't see how they could be alive. But I am Harry Potter and I am willing to prove it if the self-proclaimed Dumbledore proves his identity first by answering a question for me."

"Well, certainly. And if I may say so, that was a most remarkable feat, throwing off the body bind curse so fast."

That raised the intruder's eyebrows. "Thank you. Now to my question: Who killed Ariana?"

Dumbledore turned pale at the mentioning of his sister's name and the others gasped. Ariana Dumbledore's death was a mystery and none of them had ever dared to question him about it. After a few seconds, Dumbledore looked directly into the green eyes. "I don't know. It could have been anyone who participated in that fight."

That got a deep breath. "All right. Cast your spell."

Dumbledore did a non-verbal spell with a very complicated wand movement. "What is your name?"

"Harry James Potter." A light green glow surrounded him.

"Who are your parents?"

"James and Lilly Potter." Green again.

"Now tell me a lie. Where do you come from?"

"New Delhi" A red glow.

"Ok, where do you really come from?"

"I was at the Hogwarts Memorial before I turned up here." Green.

"What Hogwarts Memorial?"

"It was built recently as a marker for all those who died in the Battle of Hogwarts to help us to regain freedom and destroy Voldemort." Green.

"There has been not battle at Hogwarts in the last 500 years and Voldemort was defeated here, 17 year ago, although I don't think he was destroyed."

"No, he was not destroyed. He regained his powers a little more than three years ago and rose again. He was killed in the battle a few months back." Green.

"Who killed him?"

"I did." Green. That brought some gasps from their audience who had been utterly silent before.

"How?"

"With a Disarming Spell." Green again.

"Albus, your spell is not working! How can a boy kill Voldemort? How can anybody kill with Expelliamus?"

"Well you have seen how strong his Disarming Spells are. My spell works correctly and Remus even identified him by smell. This is Harry Potter."

Please Review!


	3. Chapter 3: Processing

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Processing

_Stunned Silence is a cliché of course, but if somebody falls out of thin air into a group of people and turns out to be their long-dead son / godson / surrogate nephew, it is very understandable that those people (including the fallen one) need some time to adjust. If they keep utterly silent during that time, speaking of Stunned Silence is justified. Clichés are there for a reason_, Dumbledore thought. He was just as stunned al the others, but given the brilliance of his mind, he was able to able to ramble on about the use of clichés in a tiny part of it, while the bigger part was occupied with processing this astonishing development. Someone else might of course have come up with another explanation, for example that his mind was focussing on unimportant things because it could not cope with what was actually happening, but nobody knew Dumbledore's mind like Dumbledore himself … _And there I go rambling about something unimportant again_, he thought, amused with himself.

"The last time I spoke to you, you were dead and I could have been if I had decided that I wanted to be dead. But then you knew who I was and what I had been doing, so I guess this is something different." Harry sounded almost disappointed.

"What the hell are you talking about? Merlin's beard, your mother is crying and you are standing there, calmly discussing with Dumbledore how much easier it would be if you were dead?" After she started going out with Prongs and it became clear that they would not kill each other within the first months, Sirius adopted Lily into his chosen family (as opposed to the one that was forced on him at birth) and he hated it when she cried.

"Being dead is much easier than dealing with this. I was prepared to die. And I am used to deal with Dumbledore in strange situations; he was usually the one explaining them to me. I am not at all used to deal with living parents and as long as I am not totally sure … Let's just say I want to know what I am facing first."

Lily stared at her son and felt her heart break a little more. What kind of life had he lived to develop such defense mechanisms?

James, who had for once been too busy (staring at his son in wonder) to pay attention to his wife, now went over to her and put his arm around her waist. If he wanted to comfort her or gain some semblance of stability for himself, he was not sure.

Dumbledore's brain had finally finished with processing and came up with one astonishing, outlandish solution. But really, the situation was outlandish and astonishing, how could one expect the explanation to be different? "Well, I can assure you that none of us was dead before you showed up and that you are not dead either. As for explanations … Your presence here is against the most basic laws of the magical world. The dead do not come to life again and nobody can be more than one. We know for sure that Harry Potter died as a baby, but I am equally sure that you are alive now and that you are Harry Potter. Not even some kind of time travel could explain this. But there is a – widely denied – theory that life is not only one-dimensional as in a time-line, but two dimensional as in a grid. That there are a number of parallel universes out there, inhabited by the same people. The theory says that every time a mayor event with two or more possible outcomes happens, a new universe emerges. In this case that event would have been the defeat of Voldemort 17 years ago. Apparently either of you could have died and events developed very differently from that point … There have been several incidents over the centuries with people travelling from one universe to another, which have been denied by most wizards of course, or have gone over into wizard lore and are believed to be fairy tales now. But all of these cases happened on days like Halloween, when the … separating walls between the alternative universes are especially thin. The travellers had all been prepared to die, leave their world for another, so to say, and had recently lost the relationships connecting them emotionally to their world. As today is Halloween and you said that you had been prepared to die and that we are all dead in your world … I think this might be the only valid explanation I can come up with. My dear boy, I am sorry to ask, but did you very recently loose people dear to you?"

"They attacked us at the opening of the memorial. They seemed to have targeted specifically those who had a hand in the defeat of Voldemort. The Weasleys, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Kingsley, the teachers … even little Teddy! His grandmother wanted him to be there to honour his parents. They were hit right in the beginning by the same killing curse … none of them survived." There was no expression whatsoever in his voice now, as if he was talking about an especially uninteresting school assignment instead of the deaths of the people he had thought of as his family.

None of the others uttered a word, not knowing what to say. All of those phrases one says at such a time seemed especially worthless now. Finally Lupin made a few steps forward and – very carefully – laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I know this does not make it less real for you, but … as far as I know the Weasleys have not suffered any losses in their family since Molly's brothers died before Voldemort vanished. Here, we have had no victims of Voldemort or his followers in many years. Chances are they are alive here."

Harry slowly let his glance go from Remus over Dumbledore to Sirius and then – finally – looked directly at his parents. They were still standing together with their arms around each other, staring at their adult son, trying to comprehend how their innocent little baby boy could have been given back to them – alive, but having suffered more losses than any person should have to deal with in their whole life, much less in 18 years of it. Then he slowly put a foot forward. "Mum? Dad?"

AN: This part was difficult to write for me. If it seems a little strange, just take it as the literary expression of the emotional upheavel the people in the story go through, ok? :-)

I wanted to thank everyone who put my story to their favorites or on story alert, I never had that many reactions to my stories. So thank you. And special thanks to my two reviewers.


	4. Chapter 4: Reunion

Disclaimer: Still not mine, everything you recognise belongs to JKR.

Reunion

Lily had sometimes imagined that her son came back to her alive through some miracle. Mostly she had tried to stop herself, because just hurt too much when she came back to reality and had to face a world where Harry was irrevocably dead and all she had was a little grave, but sometimes she was not strong enough. And now … here it was, her miracle. Her son was here, in the same room with her, alive. Dumbledore himself had verified his identity and she would have bruises all over her arms tomorrow to prove that she was awake and this was no dream. If she wanted to have additional proof, this reunion was nothing like those she had imagined. Harry was no sweet baby with loving eyes and dimples with which he could wrap any woman around his chubby little finger; he was a grown man with eyes which showed that he was all too familiar with loss, suffering and decisions no human being should be forced to make. If this had been her imagination, she might have made him an adult (although she never did before), but she would never have made him suffer in any way.

The reunion was also a lot more awkward than she would have imagined. After acknowledging her and James, Harry seemed at a loss about what to do next. He hesitantly came over but apparently could not bring himself to touch them. Instead, he first turned to the others. She could see that he seemed most comfortable with Hagrid, followed by Remus. Clear-sightedly due to the extreme circumstances, she supposed that they were the people who died most recently in his … universe? Whatever. They were the people he had most recently lost, so he had not completely accepted their deaths, which made it easier to deal with them now. Sirius seemed to be a little harder for him, but he let himself be dragged into a bone-crushing hug from his godfather, who seemed to have lost his quick wit and to act purely on instinct – but that worked fine. At last he was standing in front of them again and this time she did the first step. She opened her arms for him and pulled him to her. He was slightly stiff, but accepted and returned the embrace. Then she felt James' arms around them both and a small shudder seemed to run through the three of them. She did not know where it started or ended, but Harry lost his stiffness, put his arms around her so hard that it hurt and hid his face in her hair.

She did not know how long they stood like this. She did not notice that the others retreated to the kitchen to give the family some privacy. She was totally absorbed in the fact that James and she were actually touching – embracing – their son and that he was alive. So wonderfully alive! James seemed just as content to hold them. Harry was still shaking a little. After what seemed like a long time, he swallowed twice, took a deep breath and raised his head. He looked at her face, into her eyes and trailed a hand along her cheek, so softly she almost did not feel it – but how could she not feel this first caress from her son in 17 years? Then he turned his head to James and just looked. Slowly, he raised his hand from her face and put his arm around his father. They stood in this three-way embrace for some time. Then Harry took another breath. "Mum. Dad." There was neither question nor doubt in his voice now.

AN: I know this is short. I first did not want to write this part at all, but when I started a new chapter it just flew to my mind. As a compensation, the next chapter will go up soon.

I hated to kill Teddy in the last chapter, because I really like him, but I did not want Harry to be weighted down by guilt, he has enough to cope with as it is.

Thanks for the reviews and please review some more!


	5. Chapter 5: Straight Priorities

AN: I am sorry, but accents or dialects (I am talking about Hagrid here) just exceed my English skills. Please use your imagination.

Disclaimer: Still not mine and sadly, I don't get any money for this.

Straight Priorities

Sirius, Remus and Hagrid came back into the room, bringing with them a steaming teapot and cups. "Dumbledore has gone to confirm that the people you have been asking about really are ok. He knows where most of them are supposed to be, but he wanted to make sure. He said to have a cup of tea in the meantime and he will be back soon." Remus smiled at Harry.

"Thanks." There was a forced smile on Harry's face.

They sat down, Harry between his parents. James noticed with a kind of numb amusement that his wife was trying to wrap herself protectively around their son but was thwarted in her efforts by the fact that he was not only a head taller than her but seemed to have very similar protective instincts towards her. James had observed the events unfold and noticed a lot of things, but he had not been able to get his mind to work properly. That was highly unusual for him; being an auror, he needed to be able to think and react quickly but the situation was just too much. So he went on observing, storing every detail in his memory for later examination. When he had seen Lily embrace Harry, he had simply done what seemed natural, putting his arms around them both. Harry's acceptance had sent a jolt through his system and he could feel his mind slowly going back into working mode.

"Er …" Remus was searching for a harmless topic which would help them bridge the gap without too much potential of shocking revelations. Of course they needed to talk about serious matters, too, for example how Harry had managed to kill Voldemort (and with an expelliarmus, if you could believe it!) but he did not want to go into that without Dumbledore there. "Er … do you play Quidditch?"

Harry's forced smile changed into an vaguely amused grin. "I would have expected that question from … Dad, or maybe Sirius, but not from you, Remus."

"Well, I don't want to start on the important topics before Albus returnes. I thought Quidditch was innocent enough for now and I know how interested James would be in finding out."

"I am not a 15 year old Quidditch maniac anymore, Moony, and I would probably have thought to ask my son something else first on our first meeting in 17 years!" James was struggling to conceal a grin and failing.

"But it would have been your second question, wouldn't it?" Sirius did not even bother to try to hide his grin. "You usually have your priorities pretty straight."

"Well … yes. Do you play Quidditch, Harry?"

"Actually … will you think again about accepting me if I tell you that I don't even have my own broom?"

"Harry!", Lily exploded, "Nothing will ever stop us from accepting you! Those freaks …"

"Mum, don't get upset! I was just kidding. My broom got lost and I did not have time to replace it, because of all that has been going on. I have played as a Seeker for the house team since my first year, the youngest one to be accepted in a century." He grinned at his father now. "Good enough for you?"

"Youngest Hogwarts Seeker in a century? Wow." James grinned back, happy with his son's playfulness and proud as only a Quidditch maniac could be of his accomplishments. "Not even I got on the team before I was in my second year."

"Merlin, not another one!" Lily tried valiantly to match the light mood. She felt the undercurrents, especially the suppressed feelings from Harry, but she wanted to make it as easy as possible for him. With James, it usually worked best to distract him with an argument about his Quidditch obsession, so she figured it might help Harry, too. Her reward was a slightly more relaxed grin from her son.

"Yes, I am afraid it is like that. What do you expect when you are married to James Potter?"

"And what house team did you play for?" From what Sirius had seen of his godson so far, anything was possible.

"It's as clear as a kneazel claw, what he is! Being friends with the Weasleys and Hermione Granger and Neville and defeating you-know-who and everything! Our Harry is a Griffindor." Hagrid seemed to have caught up to his normal speed. "Aren't you, Harry?"

"Yes, I am." Another grin, this one showed only mild tension.

"You would have graduated this summer, right, Harry? What NEWTs did you get?" Remus was curious if he came after his mother or father in that aspect or if he was totally different there. James had aced in Transfiguration while Lily's best subject had been Potions. Both of them had been good at the other subjects, too, especially in Defence against the Dark Arts, but Transfiguration and Potions had been their special talents.

The tension in Harry's smile grew again, as Lily noticed. "Actually, I did not graduate regularly. Because of Voldemort, I spent my 7th year on the run, as did many other students, especially the muggle-borns. And those who were at school had other problems than learning to deal with. Then we had the Final Battle and everything was out of order after that. To salvage the school year, it was decided that everyone could have a go at the end of year exams, OWLs and NEWTs, respectively, regardless if they attended the year or not. All the teachers offered additional lessons over the summer for those people who failed or did not get their aspired marks and wanted to try again at the second round of exams at the end of the summer. A lot of people were at Hogwarts over the summer anyway to help to rebuild it, or they flooed or apparated when the lessons were held. I passed DADA, Charms and Potions at the first try and Herbiology and Transfiguration at the second. But we were all quite busy during the summer, therefore the `graduation´ thing was not really an issue."

There was an awkward silence to this. While they had gone to school during Voldemort's rise to power, it had never been so bad that it had affected the exams or prevented people to come to Hogwarts if they wanted to. They could not imagine 7th years being on the run instead of studying for their NEWTs. Searching frantically for a new topic, Sirius finally blurted out: "Er, do you have a girlfriend, Harry?"

Lily could have hit him as even the forced little smiled that had stayed on her son's face during his explanation about the NEWTs faded. "I had, yes. She was killed with the rest of my family earlier today."

AN: Ok, together the two chapters should make a big one. I still hope to manage to update soon, because I want to start getting something done with the story.

Thanks to everyone who put this on their Story Alert of Favorite Story list. I never had so many people do that with my other stories. Now, if you could also find the time to do a little review (one sentence is enough if you are pressed for time, really!), it would be really nice. Those, who already did that, thanks again, it is very motivating to read that you like the story.


	6. Chapter 6: Even Straighter Priorities

Disclaimer: It is still not mine …

Even Straighter Priorities

Harry was lost in his memories of the day. He saw Andromeda and Teddy been hit by a killing curse, saw Ron throwing himself between Hermione and an attacking acromantula, Mrs. Weasley being defeated by three huge death-eaters … and again and again he saw Ginny falling to the ground. He had not seen what hit her, just heard her scream, turned around and seen her fall. The light had already left her eyes.

Ginny had been the last of all the people close to him to die. That was the moment when he had decided to end it. He had fought his way to the memorial, climbed on an elevated level and shouted a stream of provocations at his enemies, who had tried to kill him so often, but always managed to hit somebody close to him instead. They had hesitated for a few seconds, not believing that he would expose himself like that and expecting a trick, but then, in an almost choreographed fashion, the had each fired a killing curse at him. Standing still and seeing his death flying towards him, his last thought had been the hope that his death would protect the survivors and allow them to catch the remaining death-eaters. He had had nothing to live for anymore.

But instead of dying and seeing his family – real and surrogate – and friends again, he had landed in this strange situation. He did not doubt Dumbledore's explanation. First of all, it was the only thing that made sense. Second, why would anyone want to make him believe he was in a different universe? Riddle was dead and nothing could resurrect him. Other than that the death-eaters wanted him dead, not alive and confused. Third, there was simply no way the death-eaters could have pulled it of, no way of making multiple killing curses cause such an illusion instead of killing him.

So here he was. Riddle was apparently still alive, but so was everyone else he ever cared about. There was a lot of information to be exchanged, theories to be tested and plans to be made, but maybe it was possible to destroy Riddle before he started killing so many people again, maybe this time he could save the people he loved. Surely, they were not really the people he loved, because they did not know him, had not shared the experiences he had with them in his world during the last seven and a half years, and they did not love him back, but still: If he could save them he could get to know them again and hopefully they would not be so different from what he was used to. Maybe he would even mean something similar to them than in his universe. He just had to deal with Riddle first, make sure that everyone had a future.

Pulling himself back to reality, he heard a faint apparation sound and steps coming towards the house. Thinking of Dumbledore, he made sure to have his hands close to the two wands he was carrying, but did not take them out. Dumbledore appeared in the doorway.

"Ah, I see you have had some time to get to know each other a little and to bump into some sore spots." He looked shortly in Sirius' direction. "I have talked to Molly Weasley, Miss Granger, Miss Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Kingsley Shackelbolt and all the Hogwarts teachers. All of them are alive and well, albeit a little surprised to have me floo them unexpectedly to ask about their health. I assume you would like to know where fate had led them in this universe?" He looked expectantly at Harry.

"Yes, of course … but I think we need to talk about Voldemort first. In my universe you used to gather information on his, about his past as well as his present moves. Are you doing the same here?"

Dumbledore was surprised and impressed with this reaction. Harry had to be desperate to hear from his friends, to connect to something or somebody familiar, but he was able to put that aside and think about what had to be done instead of what he wanted to do.

"Yes, I have collected as much information about him as possible."

"Then do you know where he is and what is doing? And in which condition he is in?"

"Well, as far as I know he is hiding somewhere in Eastern Europe, plotting to regain a usable body, as always. He seems to be living like a parasite, living on others and changing host-bodies whenever something better comes along. He made an attempt to steal the Philosopher's Stone a few years back, using a Hogwarts professor, but when that plot failed, he returned to his former hiding place and I have not heard anything specific since."

"What about … well, it's probably best to do this in chronological order, so I won't forget anything. The Philosopher's Stone incident happened during my first year, seven years ago. After that … has the Chamber of Secrets been opened recently? I am talking about the time since Voldemort vanished", he clarified, because Hagrid had winced and crushed the teacup he held in his hand.

"No, not within the last decades." Dumbledore was puzzled. "I can take a guess about what happened the last time that it was opened, and my guesses are usually quite accurate, but how could it have happened again? He would have to come to Hogwarts personally and there is no way …"

"We can go into details later, just answer my questions first, no matter how strange they seem to be, ok? Please." Harry did not want to go through every detail right now; that would take days he could otherwise spend taking action against Riddle. "Where is Peter Pettigrew?"

A deep growl came from Sirius. "The Rat is in Askaban, where he belongs." Because it had been his idea that let to the change in secret bearers and ultimately to Harry's death, he hated Peter more than the others. James and Lily had been so caught up in their mourning that they did not have very intense feelings to spare for Peter. Remus was more understanding of the weaknesses of human nature – he needed to be to survive all the prejudices a werewolf was facing – although he was as firm in his loyalties as James and Sirius.

"In a cell that will hold a rat animagus?"

"Yes. When it became clear that he was the traitor, and that we would have to hunt him down, James and I registered at the Ministry and told them about Pettigrew."

"Good. Is Berta Jorkins still alive?"

"Er … yes? I saw her at the Ministry about a week ago." James was frowning. What were theses questions leading to?

"What happened to Barty Crouch Junior?"

Even Dumbledore seemed confused now. "He was arrested in the attempt to extract information from Frank and Alice Longbottom by way of the cruciatus curse. He and his criminal accessories were sentenced to a lifetime in Askaban and died there shortly after."

"We will have to make sure that really happened."

"What do you mean? The boy who tried to torture Frank and Alice into insanity may have faked his own death and escaped Askaban?" Lily could not believe her ears.

"Well, that's what happened in my universe, but as it happened after the crossroad that separated out universes, so to speak, it might be different here. Wait. Did you say tried to? Have the Longbottoms survived with their sanity intact?"

"Yes, of course!"

"There is no `of course´ about it! In my universe they are insane, permanent inhabitants of St. Mungo's. They do not even recognise their own son! Well I am happy for Neville that it could be prevented here."

"That was your godfather's accomplishment. Padfoot was hunting Bellatrix Lestrange and he and Moony got there just in time to arrest the whole group." James smiled proudly at his two friends.

Harry smiled at Sirius, but did not reply to his father's words. He returned his gaze to Dumbledore. "Do you keep an eye on the area of Little Hangleton? The Riddle House, the Gaunt's shack, the cemetery? Any strange activities or suspicious deaths there?"

"None that I know of, although I merely read the local newspaper."

"Has Alastair Moody ever been Defence against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts?"

"Yes, he taught for a year."

"And it was really him? Not an imposter?"

"… As far as we know. Why should it have been an imposter?"

"I will explain it later. Does a prophecy exist about Voldemort? About somebody who will be able to defeat him?"

Dumbledore looked quickly at James and Lily. "Yes. That was what caused him to hunt your parents 17 years ago. At that time he seemed to think that it meant you. I thought the same until … well, after you were killed, it seemed to have been proven untrue."

"Can you tell me the exact words?"

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."

"Yes, that is the same prophecy. But how it can be true in this universe … He did not mark Neville in any way, did he? I know that the first part of the prophecy could have meant him."

"As far as I know they never crossed paths. Did the prophecy play out in your universe? Did you find out all its meanings?" Dumbledore had often speculated about it, although it had seemed pointless with Harry dead.

"Yes, it played out. I don't know if I found all its meanings, but I got a few layers deep."

"Then … maybe you were meant to come here, to fulfil the prophecy in two universes … I need more information and time to think about it …" Dumbledore was intrigued by this new idea.

"Later. Let me think now … If nothing of those things happened, everything that took place after them … it is confusing."

"Well, you are confusing us, too. How are those questions chronological? You are jumping back and forth in time as if you have taken too much pepperup potion." Sirius had enough of listening to questions which got stranger and stranger.

"Chronological for me. I am trying to keep an overview and to that end I try to go through my school years and ask about things that I found out during that time. I have got a question for you, Sirius: What happened to Number 12, Grimmauld Place and to Kreature?"

"Huh? … I inherited both when my parents died, but I hate that place and that house-elf. I just ignored both although I imagine they are still there."

"Great. That will make things easier." Now Sirius was completely confused.

"Professor, have you ever found the cave where the young Tom Riddle terrified the other kids from the orphanage?" That question was directed at Dumbledore again.

"No, I never searched for it. Is it important in some way?"

"Not really, if things played out as they did in my universe … What happened to Severus Snape?"

"He teaches Potions at Hogwarts." Harry grimaced at that.

"All right, last question … I think. Can you show me your wand?"

Of all the strange and confusing things that Harry had asked, this was the most unexpected for Dumbledore … well, aside from his question about Ariana. What did he know?

AN: This is a long chapter for me! I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to all the people who reviewed till now.

To explain the Riddle/Voldemort thing, I think that Harry thinks of him as Riddle now, because he does not want to give him the name he chose for himself, but as few people know about his real identity, he usually calls him Voldemort.

Please review some more?


	7. Chapter 7: Listing the Horcruxes

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe belongs to JKR.

AN: Wow, this was a difficult chapter. It is quite long but don't get used to it, that is only due to Harry having so much explaining to do ... Oh, in case you did not notice it before, this contains spoilers for all the books, but especially Number 7.

Listing the Horcruxes

… _Can you show me your wand?"_ That last question got everyone's attention. What was going on? Why would Harry want to see Dumbledore's wand?

Dumbledore slowly took out the wand he had won from Grindelwald so many years ago and showed it to Harry, but without letting go of it. It was an ingrained habit to never attract too much attention to it and to never let it out of his hand. No-one had ever guessed what it truly was, Grindelwald had kept quiet about it and very few people were stupid enough to even think about duelling Albus Dumbledore, let alone try it. Even Voldemort had never dared. Still, Dumbledore always kept his guard up. He did not want to end like so many of the former owners of this particular wand.

While the others stared fascinated at Dumbledore's wand, wondering why they had never paid attention to it before, Harry had not even given it more than a superficial look. He knew this wand well enough to recognise it on sight and even if that were not so, Dumbledore's reaction would have shown him everything he needed to know. He pulled out his own two wands and held them out for Dumbledore to see. "I assume you recognise both of them?" There was almost a challenge in his voice.

The others now focused on Harry's wands and gasped in shock. One of them was obviously the same wand that Dumbledore held. The other seemed to be quite ordinary. Nevertheless, this was the wand that attracted Dumbledore's attention, after he had confirmed that the other one was really the Elder Wand. He frowned, thought about where he had seen the second wand before. It surely was one of Olivander's … and then it came to him and he looked into Harry's eyes. "This is the second wand made from Fawkes' feathers! It is the brother of …" and he turned quiet again, thinking frantically about what this new development meant.

"Yes." As the others waited for Harry to explain these strange circumstances, but he did not seem inclined to elaborate on the topic, a tense pause evolved. Finally Dumbledore resurfaced from the depths of his mind. He had lots and lots of possible scenarios in his mind about how Harry might have gotten these particular two wands, but in the end there was a person in the room who could simply tell him the truth.

"Now, Harry, you have asked a lot of very strange questions and revealed even stranger facts about your universe tonight. I never doubted that Voldemort would one day return to power and would need to be defeated. I also assume that killing him won't be a simple matter, because he fears death like nothing else and will have taken certain steps to prevent being killed by normal means. You said that he came back in your universe and that you have managed to do kill him. Please explain to us how it happened. I imagine that would explain the meaning behind most of your questions too?"

"Explaining all of it in detail would probably take days. We may have time for it later – I hope so – but I don't want to spend so much time on it without knowing if what happened in my universe actually happened here too. My knowledge will only be of use if the differences between here and there started with what happened at Halloween 17 years ago. If it started earlier … Everything you have told me so far makes it look like what happened is very similar, but we will have to test this fast."

"Harry, I understand your need for action." This was Remus, doing the usual calming thing he was so good at. "But please understand that we need information before we can try to do anything. You don't have to go into the details, but I am sure that briefly outlining what happened will not take too long. Since nobody except us knows that you are here, I do not think that we are too pressed for time right now."

Harry repressed his impatience. He understood better than anybody the dangers of being left in the dark, especially after his fifth year at Hogwarts. He had forgiven Dumbledore for this long ago and he could see what the old man had tried to do. Still, he would not withhold information from his family and risk that they took possibly fatal decisions due to ignorance.

"All right. Well, basically the Voldemort in my universe created horcruxes to prevent his own death. The Dumbledore in my universe collected memories and guessed what was going on. He told me what he knew about Voldemort and what his guesses were about the horcruxes and the locations they would be hidden. He was killed while weakened from an attempt to destroy one of the horcruxes. I spent the better part of last year destroying the rest of them. When all of them were gone, Voldemort could be killed like any other wizard, which he proved by dying from a rebounding killing curse."

They were dumbstruck. Horcrux? Horcruxes, as in plural of horcrux? Dumbledore had been killed? Voldemort was immortal right now? But could be turned mortal again? Questions like these seemed to almost materialize between them, so strong were they. For several minutes, nobody said anything.

"I must assume that the Dumbledore in your universe was a lot smarter than me." Dumbledore said finally. "I have assumed that he had done something to prevent himself from dying and I theorized about different methods he could have used, leaning towards a horcrux, but I never found any specific clues that would strengthen my suspicions and I would not have suspected that he would create more than one. I never heard of anyone even attempting to do so."

"Well, your other self had the advantage that I met one of the horcruxes during my second year. It was a diary he had concealed a part of his 16 year old soul in, a proof of the fact that he was indeed the heir of Slytherin and had opened the Chamber of Secrets. He had given it to Lucius Malfoy, who smuggled it among Ginny Weasley's school stuff. She wrote into that diary and it answered, slowly gaining control over her and forcing her to open the chamber again several times. It contained a basilisk, by the way. In the end, the diary-Voldemort used her life force to become … corporal. It almost killed her. I stabbed the diary with one of the basilisk's teeth and it … died. It was pure luck that I used one of the methods with which you actually can destroy a horcrux, although I had Griffindor's sword with me at the time, too, so I might have used that as well. I gave the destroyed diary to Dumbledore and told him what happened and that brought him to the multiple horcrux theory."

"You … " Lily was at a loss about what to ask first. He had destroyed a horcrux? He had gone into the legendary Chamber of Secrets? He had saved a girls life? At the age of 12? At last she concentrated on a point which remained unclear. "You found the dead basilisk in the Chamber?" When he gave her a very unconvincing smile, she started to pant for air and her voice became shrill. "You killed a basilisk when you were 12?"

"Well I had some help. Without Fawkes and the Sorting Hat I could not have done it."

Dumbledore was no less astonished than Lily, but probably less shocked as he was not mother to the boy in question and he knew how resourceful Fawkes and the Sorting Hat could be if there was need for it. He was therefore able to concentrate on other implications of what Harry had said. "So a diary from his time at Hogwarts given to an important follower was the first horcrux … Yes I think with that knowledge and careful consideration of what else I know of Voldemort I could come up with a decent guess about other horcruxes. I will have to consult my pensive and study the patterns … or I should say I would have to as you said you have destroyed the horcruxes in your universe and would have to know where they are. How many are we dealing with, anyway?"

"Originally he wanted to make seven, the most powerful magical number, but he had made only five when he went to hunt me. Therefore, it is possible that the last two, which he created after our universes split, are different things, if they exist at all. One was actually created by accident and he never new it existed. I hope that it did not happen here, because that would cause a lot of trouble for us. But I think we can find out about that one easily as we are at the right place with the right people." Harry gave a very worried look to his parents.

"He created a horcrux without knowing? How …?" Dumbledore saw Harry's look. For a moment, monstrous possibilities assailed and paralysed him, but he shook them off. "Well, let's talk about those two last, when we are all on the same page, knowledge-wise. What were the first five horcruxes and where did you find them?"

"Well, as I said, the diary was a horcrux and it was in Lucius Malfoy's possession, although I do not know where he kept it before he gave it to Ginny. They have a secret chamber under the drawing-room floor in Malfoy Manor, but since his son knows about that, he may have other and better protected hiding places. I don't understand why he has not given it to Ginny in this universe, I don't think I had anything to do with that decision in mine. I never even met him before that day he planted it among Ginny's things." That was actually something to worry about. If Lucius Malfoy had not given the diary to Ginny, what had he done with it? The best they could hope for was that it was hidden somewhere in Malfoy Manor, maybe even in the secret chamber he knew about. But what if it had been given to someone else? How would they ever find it then?

"If you had nothing to do with it, maybe we did. We were quite upset that Malfoy managed to wiggle out of Askaban and have kept a close look on him, as did many of our fellow aurors. He might not have dared to use the diary." James had a look of grim satisfaction on his face. It had always bugged him that they had never been able to make anything stick to Malfoy, but now it seemed that they had at least prevented him from doing more harm!

"That would be good, then there is a good chance that he still has it. Did you ever search his house and found the chamber under the drawing-room floor?"

"We searched Malfoy Manor three times, but we never found that chamber. There must be anti-detection spells on it. We were thorough during those searches, although the minister always ordered us to `behave respectfully towards such a charitable pillar of the wizarding community´. Malfoy always knew which hands to grease and to which causes to donate." Sirius was bitter about this. His family too, had carried considerable weight with former ministers and had used it to influence politics in whatever direction suited them. He refused to play the same game and he hated to see how other people did it.

"We can come up with possible hiding places of Lucius Malfoy and plans on how to search them later. Let's first hear about the other horcruxes." Dumbledore wanted to have an overview over all the challenges they faced first.

"Well, the second horcrux is an heirloom of the Gaunts, the family of Voldemort's mother. It is …" Harry hesitated for a second, then he looked directly at Dumbledore. "It is the Resurrection Stone."

Dumbledore had thought that nothing could shock him anymore tonight. First the question about Ariana, than the identity of the young man, than his sheer unbelievable answers and questions. But this … is was like – no it was worse than – being struck by several stunning curses at once. He could hear the surprised and questioning exclamations of the others, could see the searching look in Harry's eyes, but he could not bring himself to react in any way. He was well and truly shell-shocked. Harry watched him for long seconds; then, as no reaction came, he returned his gaze to the others and continued his explanation, carefully leaving out the location of the Stone. He did not expect Dumbledore to jump up and make a run for it, but he wanted to make sure that he was aware of all the dangers and implications before he told him where to find this most desperate of all his ambitions.

"I had nothing to do with the search for, and the destruction of that horcrux. I know where my Dumbledore found it and that he cracked the stone with the Sword of Griffindor. I also have to tell you that the stone is cursed and that the curse infected Dumbledore and ultimately caused his death. Professor Snape managed to confine the curse to his hand, but it would have killed him within a year. When he was killed, it was not merely because he was so weak from hunting another horcrux, but also because he knew he could not live much longer. He had asked Snape to kill him at a fitting occasion and that occasion presented itself. He might – would probably – have made it out of that situation alive otherwise."

He looked at Dumbledore again, who still seemed dazed. "Do you understand? Your other self told me that you had been so overcome with emotions that you forgot the likelihood of a curse. I know why you want it so much and I think I understand it better than anybody. Everyone in this room could understand it at least partly. But it is vital that you don't make that mistake. Your life depends on it literally and we need you alive. Not only to destroy Voldemort but to deal with what comes after. I have killed him once, only to loose everyone important to me to his scattered followers banding together in one desperate last attempt. I do not want that to happen again. Please?"

Dumbledore seemed to come back to himself at those words. His eyes did not show even a spark of their usual twinkle, but were dead-serious. "I failed you, didn't I? I left you alone to deal with all of this, because I could not let go of the past. I am sorry, Harry."

Unexpectedly, Harry smiled at this. "It took me some time, because you usually seem to know everything and to do all the right things, but I finally accepted that you are only human, as are the rest of us. You did so many good things; you are entitled to make a few mistakes now and then. Even if, as you once told me yourself, your mistakes usually have worse consequences that the mistakes of others."

Lily, James, Remus and Sirius looked at each other with big eyes at these words. They were more than twice as old as Harry and rationally, they knew that Dumbledore was not unfaultable, but deep in their hearts they still looked at him as a little more-than-human. He always knew exactly what to do. The idea of him making such an elementary mistake, of being so caught up in feelings that he forgot to think … they could not imagine it. What could have so much power over Dumbledore? Hagrid knew him longer than the rest, but he had even more hero-worship in him than they did.

For Dumbledore, Harry's words were another shock he had not thought possible. Usually he would have either bristled at being told it was ok for him to make mistakes by an 18-year-old, or he would have wondered what had made the same 18-year-old so wise (depending on his current mood and on the 18-year-old in question), but his mind was not yet working as usual again. "Thank you, Harry", was the only thing he could manage.

Harry gave them a few more seconds to process what had been said. He himself had needed months to really lay it to rest. Then he continued his listing of the horcruxes. "The third horcruxed that was destroyed was a locked which had originally belonged to Slytherin and was handed down in the Gaunt family to Voldemort's mother. Voldemort hid it in a cave where he had frightened some children when he was still at the orphanage, before he found out that he was a wizard. But the locket was removed even before Voldemort vanished." Here, Harry looked at Sirius. "Regulus Black stole the locket, paying with his life for it. He gave the locket with the order to destroy it to Kreature before he died, but as neither of them really knew what it was, Kreature did not know how. If the differences in our universes started only with the fall of Voldemort, the locket should be at Number 12, Grimmauld Place."

Now it was Sirius' turn to be shell-shocked. His relationship with Regulus had been complicated at the best of times. After Peter's betrayal, he had slowly learned to appreciate that Regulus had in the end renounced Voldemort and had almost forgiven him that he had joined him in the first place. There was still the favourite son / pureblood fanatic thing, sibling rivalry, Griffindor vs. Slytherin and similar issues, but Regulus had regretted the worst of his actions at least. Now Harry said that he had not only renounced Voldemort (which showed a good deal of Griffindor recklessness in itself), but had actively worked to destroy him! He looked so shocked, that Remus, who was sitting next to him, put an arm on his shoulder to reassure him.

"To destroy the locket, we will have to deal with Kreature first, and it would be great if we could gain his support instead of forcing him", Harry continued. "I know that the two of you never had the best relationship, but I inherited him from you in the other universe, and I can assure you that he is not actually bad, it is just the circumstances that make him act so spiteful. If you treat him correctly and respect what is important to him, he is ok."

Usually, Sirius would have laughed about the idea that Kreature could be `ok´, as the mere idea seemed crazy to him, but he was still occupied with digesting the information he had received before. And if Regulus could have Griffindor characteristics, maybe Kreature could be ok? He would need some time to accept both ideas.

"The fourth horcrux we destroyed was a cup which had belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. Voldemort gave it to Bellatrix Lestange for safekeeping, as he gave the diary to Lucius Malfoy. In my universe, she kept it in her Gringotts vault, probably on Voldemort's direct orders, as I think the idea of an old family vault of a pureblood family would have appealed to him as a hiding place for a part of his soul. Maybe Malfoy kept his horcrux in his vault, too? It is a possibility we can look into."

Here Remus interrupted him. "How did you get to that horcrux, if she kept it at Gringotts? Did you trick her to take it out?"

Harry actually blushed as he answered. "No. We, err … we broke into Gringotts and stole it."

This answer brought Sirius as well as Dumbledore, who had still been thinking about the Resurrection Stone with a small part of his mind, back into the present. Harry had expected shouting, at least from his parents (which parents wanted their son to rob a bank?), but he got shocked faces and absolute silence. Lily and Hagrid, at least, looked suitable horrified. Dumbledore seemed to be very impressed. James, Remus and Sirius were alternating between shock, mad grins and strange looks of pride. They had changed since their Hogwarts times, but they were pranksters at heart and to hear that James' son had actually managed to break into Gringotts was … great.

Since no-one seemed to want to say anything about his Gringotts break-in, Harry hurried to continue. "The fifth horcrux is Rawenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort learned about its hiding place while he was still at Hogwarts from the Grey Lady, who used to be Helena, Rowena Rawenclaw's daughter. He retrieved it after finishing school and turned it into a horcrux. Later, when he applied as a teacher and came to Hogwarts for a job interview, he hid it in the Room of Requirements. It was still there in my universe."

This astonishing solution of one the greatest secrets in magical history would have lead to astonished exclamations and other signs of surprise and shock from his audience under any other circumstances, but, as things were now, it left almost no impression other than a mild "That should be easy to get then", from Dumbledore.

"To sum up" he then continued, proving that he was back to his usual self, "from the five original horcruxes which existed in your universe and are very likely to exist here, one is just waiting to be picked up at Hogwarts, one should be accessible with a little diplomacy towards Kreature, one is at a place you know, but has to be handled carefully, one is probably at Gringotts, but inaccessible under the current circumstances and the last is very probably in the possession of Lucius Malfoy at a yet unknown location, but we have some ideas for where to look. For his horcruxes, Voldemort likes old items, with connection to the founders of Hogwarts or his own ancestry, and he hides them at places which have some connection to his former life or seem otherwise worthy to him. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Now, let's talk about the two horcruxes that Voldemort created after his fall in your universe. Please tell us what they were and then we can throw together our ideas about what has happened in this one."

"One was a big snake Voldemort seemed to have a curious connection to, Nagini. I think he found her in Eastern Europe after he had tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone. She kept him alive before he recreated his body and he used her as a weapon and as an execution method. The last horcrux …", Harry hesitated for a second, "… was me."

I hope you liked this chapter and would very much appreciate reviews!


	8. Chapter 8: How to survive being killed

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter world does not belong to me.

How to survive being killed

"NO!" Lily did not know what to do. She was feeling like she was very close to break out in tears, throw up, faint, and have a nervous breakdown at the same time. Her son, whom she had buried at the tender age of one, who had returned alive as an 18-year-old just this evening, had said that he was a horcrux, which meant … what exactly did it mean? Horcruxes had been covered very briefly in auror training, but she did not know more than the basics, really. No-one had ever mentioned a human being turned into one. What could be the consequences? Grey spots were crowding in from the brim of her vision. She put her head between her knees and just concentrated on breathing.

"NO!" James knew a little more about horcruxes, mainly due to his friendship with Sirius, whose family had been deep into dark magic, at least the theory of it. But he had never in his auror career encountered a horcrux and he simply could not imagine what it would mean for his son to be one.

"NO!" Sirius stared. This was his godson; the cute little baby James and Lily had entrusted into his care should something happen to him. He had loved him from the first moment he had known of his existence and the little boy had seemed to return his love. That this innocent baby should have been turned into something as foul as a horcrux was totally out of his range of imagination. Sirius knew that there was no way to remove a soul-part from an object; the object had to be destroyed. But Harry was standing there and he had said that all the horcruxes had been destroyed.

"NO!" Remus was totally lost, did not know what to think or do, which was a bad thing, because when the human part of his mind lost control, the werewolf in him took over. He did not transform as it was not a full moon, but his instincts became sharper and his mind turned to the simplistic world-view of the wolf. He growled deep in his throat. The new person in this room was part of his family. All people in the room were, although to different degrees. And now one of them was threatened, needed to be protected at all costs. Moony drew a deep breath, searching for the foul stink of dark magic in the house. He could not discern it and that calmed him so much that Remus could take control again. No smell of dark magic – he was sure that the werewolf as a dark creature would have noticed and recognised the smell of something as dark as a horcrux. That meant that Harry was not a horcrux – anymore?

Hagrid had been very silent during the whole evening, observing without participating much, because he felt this was a family matter first and everything else should and would be handled by Dumbledore. He, who had never finished school and learned most of what he knew either from finding out himself or from having been told by Dumbledore, had only a vague idea of what a horcrux was. He could discern from the reactions of Lily, James, Remus and Sirius that it had to be really bad, but when he looked to Dumbledore he saw bright interest and speculation in his eyes, not worry. He decided to stick to his former role, staying quiet and listen to what Albus Dumbledore had to say. It had never failed him before, why should it now?

Dumbledore was indeed more interested than shocked. Maybe it was due to the many shocks he had already received during this evening, or it was due quick logical thinking – Harry had said that the horcruxes had been destroyed and Voldemort had been killed and he was apparently still alive – but he just skipped the shock stage and went right on to speculations about how Harry could have survived the removal of the part of Voldemort's soul that had been residing in him. He knew about the Invisibility Cloak which had been handed down in the Potter family, he had seen the Elder Wand with him and he had mentioned the Resurrection Stone … was it possible that Harry was indeed the `master of death´ as the old fairy tale proclaimed? Or was there something else going on that could explain this puzzle?

"Well, given the fact that we have already ascertained that you are alive and that you have told us that Voldemort was dead in your universe, I think we can assume that you are not a horcrux anymore. Can you please tell us how you managed that?" He smiled at Harry.

"There are a lot of intricate details involved in that story … It all started with the prophecy. He never knew the second part, so he just decided to kill me to eliminate a thread. When he came to this house, he first killed my father, and then ordered my mother to step aside, so he could kill me. She refused, begging him to kill her instead and to spare my life. He killed her. Those two decisions from him and from my mother made all the difference. By loving me so much that she would sacrifice herself for me, she created a protection of old magic that Voldemort had not expected. When he tried to kill me, his curse rebounded to him and would have killed him, had he not made those five horcruxes before. But his body was destroyed and his power weakened so much he had to flee. He never knew that he left behind a part of his soul. It had become so unstable that it split when he fired a killing curse at a baby. Without any other magical procedures to enclose it into an object, it went to the only living being left in the house, me." Harry's hand involuntarily went to the scar at his forehead.

"So I had a connection with Voldemort no-one knew about, and I got some of his powers, parseltoungue for example, which helped me to find the Chamber of Secrets. Well, in my first year, Voldemort discovered that he could not touch my skin because my mother's sacrifice lived in my blood. When he recreated his body in my fourth year, he therefore made sure to include me into the spell. He needed bones of his father, flesh of a servant – Wormtail – and blood of an enemy – mine. He could touch me now, but he had unknowingly created another connection between us, the one the prophecy talks about. When Dumbledore told me about the horcruxes, he never mentioned that I was one too. I learned that from some memories Snape gave me shortly before dying. It was in the middle of the battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort had issued an ultimatum that I should surrender myself. So I did. He used Avada Kedavra on me."

Lily had listened to all of this with her head still between her legs, but at his last words, she shot up, gave a loud sob and threw her arm around him, crying unrestrainedly into his shoulder. Harry was surprised for a second, but he had gained some experiences with crying women after the battle (Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, Hermione and once even Andromeda had all broken down and cried on his shoulder at one time or other), so he simply put his arms around her and hold her, stroking her back with one hand in a soothing manner. He continued to speak softly.

"Remember the words of the prophecy: but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. There were three circumstances that saved my life then. One was – once again - my mother's sacrifice. He had taken part of it into his body and as long as it existed within him, I was bound to life. The other thing – and I do not know how strong it played into the whole thing – was that I was `master of death´ at the moment. I assume all of you know the tales of Beedle the bard? The one about the three brothers?"

Yes, they all knew. All of them – except for Lily – came from wizard families. Lily had read the tales to her son. James had always had a fondness for that particular story.

"Well, the three items in the tale are the Deathly Hallows and if one person has all of them, he becomes `master of death´. The Invisibility Cloak is the one I inherited from my father; it has been handed down in the family for generations."

Everyone except for Dumbledore stared at James. "It is a family secret, handed down only from father to oldest son." He looked apologetically at his friends and his wife. "The Potters are descendants of the Peverells, of Ignatius Peverell, the brother who got the Invisibility Cloak in the tale. How did you find out if I could not tell you?" he asked of his son.

"While I was searching for the horcruxes, I cleared up some other things, too. It was a lot of guess work and I might never have been sure, had the other things not happened. The Resurrection Stone was in Dumbledore's possession and he inherited it to me, concealed in a snitch, spelled to only open when I told it that I was about to die. The third Hallow – or the first, if you go by the tale – is the Elder Wand, which also goes by Deathstick and some other names. It had gone from hand to hand since his first proprietor had been murdered for it. Ultimately it came into the possession of a wand maker and was stolen from him by Gellert Grindelwald. It went to Dumbledore. Voldemort had heard of the wand and searched for it, but he had no idea that it was part of the Deathly Hollows. He grew up in a muggle orphanage, remember. When he found out about Grindlewald, he robbed the wand from Dumbledore's grave, assuming that it would accept him as its master when he took it from there. It would not have done in any case, because he never defeated Dumbledore, but it had already changed its allegiance before he died."

"But if the other Dumbledore had asked Snape to kill him himself, he would have died undefeated and nobody should be able to gain the allegiance of the Elder Wand ever again!" Dumbledore had thought about that problem a lot since he conquered the wand.

"Probably. But the thing is, the other Dumbledore did not die undefeated. I told you he was weakened from the horcrux hunt. Before Snape cast the killing curse, Dumbledore was disarmed by Draco Malfoy, who had been given the order to kill him, but could not do it in the end. But the disarming was enough for the wand to change loyalties. No-one ever knew, Draco, Dumbledore and me were the only witnesses and Draco and I were not aware of the consequences. By coincidence, I overpowered Draco month later, and took his wand, thereby gaining the allegiance of the Elder Wand without knowing. When I walked into the forest to be killed, I had the Cloak and the Stone with me. I let go of the stone shortly before I reached Voldemort, so it was close enough to still be considered mine, and the Wand was there too, of course. So, I was bound to life by the blood Voldemort had taken to recreate his body, master of death by the three Hallows and Voldemort tried to kill me with a wand that was not working properly for him and had accepted me as its master. I don't know which of these circumstances saved me or whether it was the combination of all three, but I did not die. My spirit spent some time in a place between life and death, a place out of time, and there I had a very enlightening conversation with Dumbledore's spirit. He said, that I could choose to move on if I wanted to, but I could also return and finish it. I chose to return. The horcrux was gone, Neville finished of the snake and then Voldemort and I duelled. He cast Avada Kedavra, I cast Expelliarmus, the curses hit in mid-air. His curse rebounded on him and he died. That is how you kill a person with the Disarming Spell."

He was met by stunned silence – again. Even Lily's sobbing had subsided. It might have been a weird kind of selfishness, but hearing that her other self's sacrifice had saved her son twice had done as much to calm her down as feeling said son's arms around her.

"You see, if he has made or is going to make a Nagini-like horcrux again, it should be easy to find out, because he would keep the animal close. But for the other horcrux, if it exists, we will have problems to destroy it without killing the person it is in. And since the only two candidates are my parents, I want to avoid that at all costs."

The idea that they might carry a part of the soul of the darkest wizard of all times in them was disturbing, but having exhausted most of their horror capacity to the other events of the night, James and Lily took it relatively quiet. Sirius was another matter, he looked like he wanted to launch himself at them and protect them with his own body, which was illogical, because the thing they might need protection from was inside them, but Sirius was not known for his logical reasoning when his friends were threatened. Remus stared with wide eyes, trying not to give in to his ingrained pessimism. The werewolf would have smelled something like that, wouldn't he? Hagrid was waiting for Dumbledore to dispense all those worries with some clever thinking or fast magic. It simply could not be that one of those great people could be infested with a … foul dark … whatever.

Dumbledore had listened carefully to everything Harry had said, but since he explained how he became a horcrux, a part of his mind had mulled that thought over and over, reaching the same conclusions that Harry had spelled out moments before and thinking about possible tests for the existence of a horcrux in a human body. Unfortunately, this was magical virgin soil; nobody had ever tried to hide a piece of his soul in a human being. Not even a detection spell to find out if an object was a horcrux existed, as far as he knew.

"There is no easy test for this, I am sorry to say. We will have to rely on logical reasoning. The circumstances under which a soul could split without the knowledge of its owner have to be very special and while they were close in the two universes, they might have been different enough not to have happened here. None of you have scars left from the night we are talking of. I assume that there were some details which would have made my other self in your universe suspect that you were a horcrux, he would not have sent you to die for a mere whim. I have never noticed anything about Lily and James which made me suspect any dark forces at work and knowing what to look for now, I cannot remember any incident which would tell me one of them might be a horcrux."

"I had a strange connection to Voldemort, my scar would hurt when he was near or excited in any way. After he regained a body, I sometimes could look into his head and he could plant images into mine. I ability to speak parsel came from him and vanished when he died." Harry had looked at Dumbledore, fearing what he would see when he turned his eyes to his parents. Now he felt a surge of hope go through him at Dumbledore's words and he searched in their faces for reassurance that they had never felt anything like what he described. They looked at each other, trying to remember any strange or mysterious happening since the night Voldemort was destroyed. Living in the magical world, they had their fair share of them, but nothing had felt like a connection to Voldemort.

"There is another thing that gives me hope: the prophecy does not mention anything that could be interpreted as James or Lily being a horcrux. It would not have to, but as it gives a strong hint for you being one, the fact that it doesn't say anything about other people having to die before you can defeat him is encouraging."

"Albus …" Remus was reluctant to add his or rather the werewolf's discovery, for he was afraid that it would build a false sense of security, but it was too important to keep it quiet. "When Harry first announced that he had been a horcrux, I lost control for a moment and the werewolf took over. I think he would have smelled or rather sensed the presence of a horcrux if it were here."

Albus looked at him thoughtfully. "It is not unheard of for werewolves to sense and react to dark magic, although instances where one could actually remember and tell about it were rare. It is no definite proof, as you have not turned or just might be too used to the horcrux presence in your friends, but it is another bit of evidence which points in the direction we all hope for." Remus smiled, relieved that his discovery was figured in the bigger picture, but not seen as the ultimate truth.

"Well, we can certainly test Remus' abilities to sense a horcrux when we have retrieved one and with some time for research we might be able to invent a significant test. Harry, the horcrux did not endanger you before Voldemort regained his powers, did it? Right, then there is no need for immediate action, a good thing since we do not know what to do. I assume it will take time to get into possession of and destroy the rest of the horcruxes. In the meantime we can research for a horcrux test."

They felt reassured a little although they were far from carefree, of course.

"Professor, if you want to do research on horcruxes, you should bring in Hermione. She can work wonders when given a challenge and a library." Harry grinned at this.

"That is an excellent idea, Harry. We will probably have to bring in more people for this quest anyway. It might be a good idea to use the same people who helped you last time … we will have to plan this properly. Oh, and I just noticed, if this is a long-term project, so to speak, we will have to develop a strategy on how to introduce you to this world. I know how much it must cost you to go horcrux hunting instead of catching up with your friends and if we bring some of them in on this, it won't be necessary, but I don't think it would be a good idea to tell the truth to all and sundry. It would involve a lot of explaining and Voldemort could hear about it. He might figure out what we are doing and improve the protection around his horcruxes, or created new ones. With your looks we should come up with an explanation involving the Potter family, do you have any ideas, James?"

"I know that I do not have any relatives left, but not many other people do. We can say that he is a distant cousin who has lived in the United States so far … he is here to re-establish family contact, because his great-grandfather left Britain after a fight … not much family left over there, either … eyes come from the maternal grandmother's side … maybe we can make you a little older so your existence is less suspicious? You look older, so you can say that you just turned 20."

"What would you like to be named, Harry? We will have to develop a blending spell for you, there are too much identity readers around not to." James and Sirius had ample experience in these matters due to their careers.

"Err …" Harry tried to think of a name and could not come up with anything. Whenever this had happened before he had used the name of an acquaintance, but if he had to use that identity for longer, he might run into the person. He looked around for help.

"Do you like Carl? It was my father's name, but no-one in the wizard world would know that." Lily smiled at her son.

"Uhh … yes, Carl it is." I was not worse than anything he could have come up with. Carl Potter felt strange to him, but anything else beside Harry would.

"Good." Dumbledore smiled. "It is already rather late and I think before we start, we should sleep a little about what we need to do next, otherwise we are bound to make mistakes. Harry, you will need some sleep, too. Go with your parents for now and we will all meet tomorrow morning at the Potters. It is a Saturday."

"Before we go, I just have to find out about one person from my universe who has not been mentioned yet." Harry turned to Remus. "Do you have children?"

Remus stared at him with wide eyes. "No. Did … did I have children in your universe?" He had always been afraid to give his `furry little problem´ to any children he might have, so whenever a relationship with a woman became to serious, he had turned away. Now there was a possibility that he had had children in another universe …

"Are you even married? No? Hmm … what about Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger? Bill Weasley? None of them?" Before, Harry had not permitted himself to think to closely about what might be different in his friends' lives due to the fact that he was not there, therefore this came as a shock. Not only he would have to defeat Voldemort again, he would have to play matchmaker for his friends, too?

AN: Another long chapter. Now that all the important explanations are done, we will have to see what they will do ...

Thanks for all the encouraging reviews.


	9. Chapter 9: The Next Morning

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter Universe still belongs to JKR.

The Next Morning

Harry woke in an unfamiliar room. He did not panic, knowing quite well that he was at his parents' house. He remembered everything from the day before up to the point where Dumbledore had told them to go home and sleep. As if that was the command his brain had been waiting for, he had at once felt dead-tired and his memories of leaving the house in Godric's Hollow, apparating side-by-side with his father to his parents' house, being shown a room by his mother and waiting for his bed to be prepared by a friendly old house-elf were rather sluggish.

By the light coming through the window he assumed that it was already rather late, mid-morning. He was so hungry that he could eat a hippogriff, having eaten nothing in 24 hours. He saw fresh clothes and towels lying on a chair, while his wands and other personal things were on the bedside cabinet and he remembered being told by his mother that there was a bathroom next door. He got up.

15 minutes later he left his room in search for the kitchen. Walking by an open door, he found his parents in a room that looked like an at-home office with two desks and lots of well-filled book shelves. His mother saw him standing in the doorway and got up. They stood a little awkwardly in front of each other, before she pulled him into a tight hug. "Good morning. We decided to let you sleep as long as possible, but I would have come to wake you in fifteen minutes anyway as Sirius, Remus, Albus and Hagrid are due in an hour."

James joined them, hugging Harry as well. It was a strange feeling to be hugged by his parents. From the older people of his surrogate family, only Mrs. Weasley had hugged him on a regular basis and those hugs had felt different. Well, the physical feelings were different (Mrs. Weasley was smaller and rounder than both Lily and James), but the comforting sensations were similar.

"You are probably hungry, right? I was always hungry at your age, still am, come to think of it, although I am not as bad as Padfoot … Kabby can make you some breakfast in the kitchen. She is our house-elf, I don't know if you got her name yesterday …" James was rambling a little, unsure about what to say to this semi-stranger who was his son, but he assumed that food would help. That's what his mother always used to resort to in a crisis. He got a small smile from Harry (who was thinking about Ron's constant hunger and Mrs. Weasley's attempts to cure everything with food).

"Yes, I am hungry. I was searching for the kitchen."

"Come, we will show you. After breakfast we can give you the grand tour of the house, before our visitor's arrive. Did you sleep well? Was your bed comfortable?" Lily had been worried how he would sleep after the day he had. She herself had been unable to fall asleep for hours and had had very strange dreams, always running behind a shadow without being able to reach it. By the tired look in James' eyes, it had been the same for him.

"I was so tired I would have slept well on a glacier. And since the camping trip from hell, I don't have too high standards in sleeping comforts. But the bed was very comfortable, thank you." He did not like the formal sound of the last sentence, but could not change it. Harry assumed that getting familiar with his parents would simply take some time getting used to.

When the others arrived, they all settled down in the living room.

"Shall we begin? First of all, Harry, did you think of any additional information you need to give us which might be important when we try to destroy the horcruxes?" Dumbledore was aware that it must be difficult for Harry to remember everything at once while telling his story, especially since the people he was telling it to had already known big parts of it in his own universe.

"Not really … although I came up with a reason why Voldemort's soul might not have split when he was defeated. The Dumbledore in my universe thought that Voldemort had intended to create a horcrux from my murder that night. He saved that for special kills and it had to be prepared well, but as I was `the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord´, as the prophecy said, I might have counted as special enough and he had had time to prepare the whole thing while he hunted us. I don't know exactly how a horcrux is created, but I know that you have to do the killing first and then do an incantation to fix the split part in the object that is to become a horcrux. If he wanted to create a horcrux from murdering me, he was attempting to split his soul with that particular killing curse and it is no wonder that it worked. But if he killed me accidentally with a curse intended for Mum and Dad … I think his soul would not have split itself due to that curse, because it was never his intention to use it to create a horcrux. And the second killing curse, the one aimed at my parents that rebounded on him, was not meant to split his soul either, because he had planned to make a horcrux from murdering me, not them. Does that make sense?"

Everyone thought about it. Finally Dumbledore spoke. "Yes, I think that might be a good explanation why Voldemort's soul did not split in this universe. But we still have to make absolutely sure. We cannot risk being wrong there, for James' and Lily's sake as well as for the success of the whole undertaking."

"I thought about that one." Remus spoke up. "Harry said that one horcrux was hidden in the Room of Requirements. I think if I went there and tried to find it, that should be a good test of whether the werewolf can sense dark magic while being caught in a human body or not."

"That's a great idea Remus. I can tell you what to ask of the room and one could spend days there without finding the diadem, if one doesn't know exactly where to search for it. But wait … It is a place where everyone put the things they needed to hide, there are probably more dark magical things there. Won't that confuse the werewolf?"

"Not necessarily, he would only have to find the darkest of all." Dumbledore smiled. "It is a good test and if it works we may save ourselves countless hours of research, although I do not doubt that we will research the topic to the best of our abilities anyway. Remus and I can go to Hogwarts and try to retrieve the horcrux; if we are not successful, we will just call Harry and he can follow us there."

"I think you should take someone with you, who has never been a teacher at Hogwarts if you want to find that particular specification of the Room of Requirements." Sirius grinned. "If I remember the situation correctly, one would feverishly wish for `a place no teacher will ever find´ when trying to hide something."

"Ah, yes. Hagrid can help us there, although that non-teacher state will not continue for long, if we manage to open the Chamber of Secrets and kill the basilisk in there." Hagrid looked absolutely surprised at this. "Did you think we would not try to clear your name, now that we have a way to do it? You must think badly of me, indeed."

Harry could hear the teasing in Dumbledore's voice, but Hagrid had not noticed. "Professor Dumbledore, sir, I would never think badly of you, after all you have done for me! I never …"

"But Hagrid, what I have done for you was merely watering down the harsh consequences of being accused of a crime you did not commit, and rather poorly I did it. I could not stop them back then from expelling you or breaking your wand, but I can help to clear you name now."

Hagrid looked like he would break into tears of gratitude any moment now, and Lily cautiously padded his back. Everyone else politely pretended to be interested in something else.

"While Remus, Hagrid and I go to Hogwarts to retrieve the diadem and to fetch Griffindor's sword, Harry and Sirius can deal with Kreature and get the locket. Since you inherited him in your universe, Harry, I assume that you know him well enough to find a way to make him cooperate. Do you agree?"

"Yes." Harry was thankful that it would not be necessary to debate about his wish to be the one talking to Kreature. Sirius was less eager, but if returning to Number 12, Grimmauld Place would help to destroy Voldemort, he would do it.

"Lily and James can contact the old members of the Order of Phoenix in the meantime. We will hold a meeting tonight. Please make sure that they understand that there is no immediate danger. Hearing from the Order in times of apparent peace will be disturbing for them. We will include Harry's friends. I think it would be best if I contacted those to make sure they understand the importance of it and do come. If we start now we can meet again in about two hours and hopefully destroy our first two horcruxes. Agreed?" Nobody spoke against him.

Thanks for all the nice reviews, please review some more! The next chapter will be up soon.


	10. Chapter 10: Success and Problems

Disclaimer: The HP Universe does not belong to me.

Success and Problems

Harry looked at Sirius. „I know that Number 12 Grimmauld Place is heavily guarded. Will you be able to bring a guest just like that or do you need to lower the guards first?"

Sirius thought about that. "I think it will be best if I go first, just to be on the safe site. My father installed some nasty defence magic to discourage strangers to drop by."

Harry smiled. "I am not easily discouraged if I want to visit my godfather. Are there other wizard families close by? I never found out much about the neighbourhood other than that the closest neighbours are muggles. If not, our apparating there might draw the attention of the Ministry."

"It is close enough to other wizard spots in London not to draw attention. The Blacks do not like society, but they like it even less to be too observable from official sources." Sirius had a slightly sarcastic smile on his face. Harry felt the need to reassure him.

"I have met quite a lot of Blacks, former Blacks and Black descendants and you have the whole range from as dark as it gets to good to a fault. I think you balance each other out and in the newer generations the good ones seem to take overhand."

"Are you talking about Dora? Excuse me, Tonks. She started to work as an auror a few years ago and she is all right, just like her mother. But Cousin Cissy's son Draco is as pure-blood fanatic just like his father."

"Actually, I was talking about your generation and the next one. You see, from five cousins three have turned out to be alright and Narcissa has some redeeming qualities, at least she really loves her son and her husband. Same goes for Draco: he might be a stuck-up pure-blood, but he is not truly evil; at least in my universe he did not chose the dark path in the end. And I know Tonks and Andromeda, they are both very good people."

Sirius felt a little better. He had spent most of the night thinking about Regulus and bitterly lamenting the fact that they had been born into such a family. If he had turned around in the end, he might have never chosen the dark side if he had not been born a Black.

"Well, let me just put on my invisibility cloak and then we can apparate to the little alley between Grimmauld place and Hedger Street. I don't want to be seen while you deal with the defence magic. As soon …"

James had been listening quietly while Harry talked to his friend. He knew how much bitterness Sirius still felt about his family and was astonished how much Harry seemed to understand of it and how well he was handling Sirius' dark mood. He must have gotten some experience with his godfather in the other universe. The last sentence got his attention, however. "Wait, you have got the Cloak with you? Where?"

Harry took something small out of his pocket, pointed at it with his wand and it grew into a moleskin bag. He reached inside, his arm vanishing much farther that it should have been possible, and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak.

"Smooth trick." Sirius was impressed.

"I copied it from Hermione, actually. Since the battle, I have gotten used to carrying all my important stuff with me for situations like … well, not quite like this, I did not expect to end up in another universe." He tried a grin which was not totally convincing.

"What else are you carrying around with you?" James had always been curious.

Harry's next grin was much more convincing. "You will see in time." James pouted, just to see his son smile some more. It worked.

"Well, as I was about to say, as soon as you are inside the house, call Kreature and tell him to stay put and not to disturb you. When I am inside, order him to listen and answer to me and never to tell anyone about what we are going to say and do. He will probably provoke you as much as he can, but please don't rise to the bait. And it is especially important that you never scream `Out´ at him. He used that command last time to leave the house and betray you."

Sirius's eyes showed a dangerous glint. "That treacherous little …", but Harry interrupted him.

"Please, Sirius. I hated him for that, too. But think about the life he was forced to lead, slave to a dark wizard family which treated him like … nothing. He does not have anything left besides his belief in the Blacks and their ways, so he clings to it as hard as he can. You have renounced their ways and still he must serve you as the last of the Blacks, although your mother, whom he loves because he does not have anyone else to love, hated you. I don't ask you to become his best friend, just don't let him provoke you to treat him roughly and let me deal with the rest. OK?"

"Yes, all right." It took a lot of effort to do so, but with Harry's explanation in mind, he saw that abusing Kreature for what he was would make him similar to his family, something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

"Let's go then."

……………………………………………

When Harry entered Number 12, he heard Mrs. Black's portrait scream its head off and he saw Kreature rooted to the spot, unable to talk, but with a look of such fury on his little face as he had not seen from him since the time he had called him to Privet Drive before his sixth year. He closed the door behind him and Sirius gave Kreature the orders they had agreed on. "Let's go to the kitchen." Harry suggested. They did.

Harry and Sirius sat at the kitchen table. Sirius concentrated on his godson to avoid having to look at the elf. "Please sit." Harry said to Kreature who, having been commanded to listen and answer, not to obey, stood still.

"Sit!" Sirius spat and returned his eyes to Harry. It was much more difficult to ignore Kreature's behaviour and snide comments than he had expected. They tried to suck him back to a time where he had been the white sheep of the Black clan, as he had called it himself. He had hated it.

Kreature had to obey.

"Kreature, my name is Harry Potter. I know you have no reason to trust or like me, just as you do not trust or like Sirius, and I do not expect it of you. But you and I have a common goal and I hope that you can put aside your hate long enough that we can achieve it. Will you let me explain?"

"Kreature has no choice, Kreature has been ordered by bad master to listen to the killer of the glorious Dark Lord." As Sirius wanted to punch the house-elf for this infamy, Harry stopped him and gave him a meaningful look to remind him of his promise.

"You have no choice now, but I hope you will not mind listening to me when I tell you that out common goal is to fulfil Master Regulus' last wish." Harry observed the impact of his words on Kreature. His scowl vanished, his eyes turned big and he thought he saw tears forming in them, before Kreature let his face go carefully blank.

"What would Harry Potter know of Master Regulus last wish? He was still a baby when my young master died and Kreature has never told anyone, because his good Master Regulus ordered him not to."

"And still I know what happened in the cave, both times that you have been there, once with Voldemort and once with your Master Regulus. I am sure you know that I died when I was a baby, not to long after Regulus died. I cannot tell you how I come to be alive or how I got to know about the locket, but I will tell you that I want to destroy the locket, just as your Master Regulus ordered you to do, and more important, I know how it can be done." Harry frowned a little. There was something about destroying the locket, something he had forgotten …

The blankness on Kreature's face vanished and was replaced by desperation. "Kreature tried everything he could think of. He tried again and again and had to punish himself harshly because he could not find a way. How can Harry Potter know?"

"I know because I found out what it is. There are several ways and I am working with Albus Dumbledore to provide one."

"Kreature's Mistress said that Dumbledore was an old fool that he was a muggle-loving weakling. Kreature's Mistress despised Dumbledore." Harry, who had pushed aside his struggle to remember what he had forgotten about destroying the locket (now was really not the moment), had expected this rant from Kreature and had held up a hand to stop Sirius from doing anything before it even started. He was going to take a risk, but he hoped that it worked out.

"What did Master Regulus say about Dumbledore? He would not have liked him, but did he doubt Dumbledore's abilities and knowledge?"

Kreature was quiet for some time. The rants about Dumbledore had come from Mrs. Black and he tried to remember if his young master had ever agreed or said anything else about Dumbledore. "Kreature thinks that his Master Regulus … believed Dumbledore to be a powerful wizard."

That was what Harry had speculated on. Not even the death-eaters did deny that Dumbledore's magic was powerful, no matter what they said about his attitudes and actions.

"Will you bring the locket to Albus Dumbledore so it can be destroyed for good? Will you fulfil your Master's last wish? The one that he died for?" Harry knew that he was piling it on, but he had to remind Kreature of Regulus to help him overcome his hate for Sirius and the prejudices against the `blood traitors´ that had been instilled into him during his whole life.

Kreature was silent for a long time and Harry was holding his breath. If Kreature refused to help they would have to try to take the locket by force. Not only did he not want to hurt Kreature, he had also seen enough of what Dobby and Kreature were able to do in times of need. He was not too sure about the outcome of a fight between two wizards and one enraged house-elf, even if one of the wizards was his master. Slowly, Kreature nodded. "Kreature will let Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore help him fulfil his young Master's last wish."

Harry smiled at him. "Then please go to fetch the locket and come back down. We will go to my parent's house and wait for Dumbledore." Kreature tried to stand up, but he could not. He gave a fierce look to Sirius, still being bound by his command to sit.

Sirius had listened to this strange conversation with growing astonishment. He had never heard a wizard talk to a house-elf like that. James and Lily treated theirs like a beloved old family member, but then Kabby loved them to distraction and fulfilled any wish before they could speak it out loud. Harry had treated Kreature like an equal and had even accepted his ranting about Dumbledore and his words about Voldemort. And Kreature had reacted like an intelligent being, able of strong emotions, but also of logical thoughts and listening to reason. He knew that house-elves could do that, he had seen it in the Hogwarts elves and in Kabby, but he had never applied that knowledge to Kreature. He would have to think about it. For now … maybe he should take Harry's behaviour as an example. "Do as Harry says, Kreature … please." Receiving an even fiercer scowl for the last word, he almost felt relieved.

When Kreature returned with the locket and showed it to Harry, he suddenly remembered what he had forgotten about it: He had needed to open it by speaking parsel before Ron had been able to stab it with the Sword of Griffindor! And the sword … damn it, the sword had only been able to destroy the horcrux because it had been in contact with basilisk poison! It had "imbibed whatever makes it stronger" as Hermione had said. How were they going to destroy any of the horcruxes? He would have to kill the basilisk first and in order to get to it he would have to speak parsel … How could he have forgotten those vital things?

AN: Well, Harry had a very interesting day before, he is bound to forget some things ...


	11. Chapter 11: A Plan

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

AN: Sorry for the long waiting period, I was quite busy during the last two weeks.

A Plan

They arrived back at Potter House with Kreature in tow. The others were already waiting. They had put the diadem and the sword on a table and sat around it. Harry asked Kreature to put the locket next to them and sit down, which caused raised eyebrows from everyone except Dumbledore. To treat a house-elf like an equal and ask him to sit down at the same table as wizards was highly unusual, but no-one questioned. That, too, was unusual, for Harry was the youngest and newest member of their group and had not yet proven himself in the way the others had (not in their universe). But he had gotten so used to be looked at as the Chosen One, the Saviour of the Wizard World, the Defeater of the Dark Lord, that he did not wonder about it and the others felt an air of authority around him that made him that belied his young age. Therefore, they were not astonished when it was Harry and not Dumbledore who started this meeting.

"We have a problem that I did not think about when I arrived yesterday. Two actually, but they are related to each other. The Sword of Griffindor worked against the horcruxes in my universe, because it imbibed basilisk poison in the Chamber of Secrets. In this world, it has never been in the Chamber and therefore it won't destroy the horcruxes. We cannot use basilisk venom this time to destroy the horcruxes, because in order to reach the Chamber, we would need a parselmouth which I was when I opened it last time in my universe, but am not anymore. Also, the locket has to be opened by a parselmouth before it can be destroyed. I am sorry."

Dumbledore was the only one who could answer to this speech. "Harry, I was afraid that this might be the case when I went to fetch the sword today. I read up everything I could find about horcruxes in the limited amount of time I had this morning before coming here, and a mere goblin-made sword is no instrument to destroy them. I thought that maybe the sword had imbibed something I did not know about, but you mentioned it being in the Chamber and I feared that could have been the reason and that you might have forgotten about it, which is quite understandable under the circumstances. For the diadem, I suggest we use a fiendfire …"

"But that is highly dangerous!" Lily interrupted.

"If it is handled by a normal wizard, yes. But I am a little more than normal and I hope you trust me to know what I am speaking about." Lily blushed at this answer. If Dumbledore said that he could safely control the fiendfire, who would doubt him?

Dumbledore continued. "Now, with the locket we might have more of a problem, if it really has to be opened before it can be destroyed. Parselmouths are very rare, aside from the members of the gaunt family there was only one known parselmouth in Britain, Beethou Barnoubak, who was murdered 40 years ago."

Harry was startled by this information. He had not known that parselmouths were that rare and if the last one was murdered … "Do you know who killed him?"

"Barnoubak dabbled in the Dark Arts. He was not really deep into them, but as a parselmouth he seems to have felt pushed in that direction by the common prejudices. Another dark wizard confessed to the murder, said that Barnoubak had stolen secrets from him. He did not even make it to Askaban, had a heart failure during the trial."

"Why is a 40 year old crime important? We need to find a living parselmouth, that should be our first priority." Sirius was impatient.

Harry smiled enigmatically. "You will see, Sirius. Tom Riddle always considered himself unique, one of a kind, and he did not like to be reminded that he was not. He called himself Voldemort because he did not like to be called Tom, such a common name. Tom Riddle, after his father, was even worse. He also thought that he was the only student of Hogwarts who had ever found the Room of Requirement. He would have hated to know that there was another parselmouth around, not to mention the danger of that person opening the Chamber of Secrets and controlling the basilisk by speaking parsel. Beethou Barnoubak was murdered 40 years ago, when Voldemort just started to build a power base in Britain. The crime was solved quickly by a confession that was not looked at too closely. For me that sounds very similar to other murders, murders committed by Voldemort."

Sirius still did not see the point. "Alright, that sounds plausible, but it still won't help us with our current problem."

"Well, actually, I think it will. If Barnoubak only dabbled in the Dark Arts because he thought it was expected of him and if he was really murdered by Voldemort he should be more that happy to help us with his destruction."

"But Harry, he is dead, he cannot help us." Sirius really did get frustrated now.

"Ah, really? But we happen to know the hiding place of a perfectly functional Resurrection Stone, which allows the user to communicate with the death." Harry smiled. The others were too astonished to say something.

After a while, Dumbledore had caught up with Harry's plan enough to raise an objection. "Harry, the legends say that the Resurrection Stone only makes the death visible for the user. Even if Beethou Barnoubak would be willing to help, his voice would not reach the locket or open the Chamber, because it would only be audible for the one calling him."

Harry had expected this objection and could counter it. "The words do not need to be spoken by a real parselmouth, an accurate imitation of the correct sound by someone who has no idea what he is really saying will do. My friend Ron was able to open the Chamber by repeating the sounds he heard me say towards the locket. If Barnoubak teaches the sounds to one of us, that would be enough. Actually, if anyone of you has ever heard a parselmouth say `open´ and could show us the memory in a pensive …?" They shook their heads.

"What about you, Harry? You must have said those words yourself." Remus frowned.

"Yes, but I never even noticed that I was speaking another language when communicating with snakes till my second year. In my mind it always sounded like normal words, so I have no idea what it sounded like. Sorry. But as I said, I Barnoubak is willing to help, we can get around the parselmouth problem."

The simple solution towards the seemingly unsolvable problem was baffling. "I begin to understand how you were able to succeed the first time. You must have inherited some Marauder's masterminding abilities, even if you used them for different purposes." Lily grinned at her husband and his friends, who responded with rather goofy grins themselves. Hearing Lily praise their pranking skills was a rare occurrence.

"Well, let's go get the Stone, then." Sirius began to rise from his chair.

"That will have to wait till tomorrow. The meeting of the Order of Phoenix starts in a few hours and it needs to be prepared." James and Lily had spent the morning with contacting everyone.

"Yes we should figure out how we want to explain the whole thing. That will take some time. I am not sure I would believe myself such a tale." Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling again.

"We should also make a list of individual problems and plan whose help we will probably need on which one." Remus had always been the structured thinker of the Marauders.

"And we need to make absolutely sure that nothing of what we tell them reaches the ears of anyone outside the Order. Therefore we should secure the meeting room and prepare something that prevents the people from talking about it outside Order meetings." Harry saw Dumbledore and his father looking sharply at him, therefore he continued, "I am not accusing anyone of voluntary treachery, but even without bad intentions there can be mistakes. We cannot afford any Death-Eaters reaching the horcruxes first and removing them, especially not since Lucius Malfoy already has his hands on one of them." James looked content with this explanation.

Dumbledore was thoughtful. "I suggest that we start, then. I will go and destroy the diadem with fiendfire. Remus, Sirius, James and Lily can work on privacy and secrecy charms. Harry, you should work on how you are going to tell your story tonight. After that we can all meet again and start to work on that list Remus mentioned. Agreed?" Of course they did.

Review, please?


	12. Chapter 12: After the Meeting Molly

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter Universe belongs to JKR.

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AN: Sorry for the long delay. What can I say? I was infected by Twilight Fever. I don't know how that happened, I still remember thinking `What is all the hype about?´ after finishing the first book ...

The following chapters are short and each featuring reactions and thoughts of a few of our favorite people. So far I have finished Molly, Hermione and Snape, so updates should follow in short order.

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After the Meeting: Molly

Molly Weasley hardly knew what to think. There had been so much going on since yesterday evening. First, there had been Dumbledore's question after her family. She had almost panicked, thinking that there would have to be a good reason for that inquiry, but when she had raced to the family clock to check, the ten fingers featuring Arthur, herself, their children and one daughter-in-law, had merely shown their current location.

Bill was in Egypt, Charley had come home on a vacation and was currently snoring in his old room, Percy and his wife had joined the family Halloween celebration, but had left early for their home in a London suburb. The twins were still living at home (saving money for that infernal joke shop they were planning) and Ron had opted to sleep in his old room for tonight (he was usually living in London with one of his old dorm mates). Ginny was at Hogwarts, as she should be. None of the fingers had pointed to "Mortal Peril", "Hurt", or even "Travel".

Dumbledore had reassured her that he had no reason to assume that her family was not all right and that he was just making sure and that she would probably get to know the reason soon.

Then, this morning, she had gotten a floo call from Lily Potter, who had announced an Order of Phoenix meeting for the evening. Again, she was told that there was no need to panic, it was just because new information on You-Know-Who had been discovered, but there was no immediate danger. The whole of the Weasley Family was invited, which included Ginny.

When Molly had resolutely refused, based on the fact that none of her children had been in the Order the first time around and that Ginny was not even out of school, Lily had looked very seriously and had said, "Please. I can understand you worries, believe me." Molly had blushed at her lack of tact; after all, the whole wizarding world knew that Lily Potter had lost her son to You-Know-Who. Lily had continued. "This is not going to be like last time. And there is a special reason, why we need Ron and Ginny there." And so Molly had agreed.

What she had heard and seen at the meeting was unbelievable enough to require the almost laughable amount of security spells they had to get through to reach the Potters' house.

Dumbledore had started the meeting by announcing that they had discovered a way to end the threat of Voldemort returning for good. Then he had introduced a young man, whom Molly had instantly wanted to mother and feed. His eyes had such a look of loss and mourning. But when he had started to speak, he had suddenly changed, grown somehow, cloaked in an air of authority almost as strong as Dumbledore's.

"I would like all of you to watch a memory first and then listen to some explanations. I know you will have trouble believing me, but I want to get the basic information across before I start proving my story and answering to your doubts." He had hold his wand above a pensive standing next to him and a memory had started to rise from it. Molly had heard Ron giving a short gasp.

"Trelawney." The Divination Professor?

`The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies …'

"This prophecy was given by Professor Trelawney to Professor Dumbledore 17 years ago. Voldemort was informed about the first part by a spy. There were actually two boys who fitted that part, Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter. Voldemort decided to go after the Potters. This prophecy is the reason of the attack which led to his downfall.

When Voldemort entered the house in Godric's Hollow, there were two possible outcomes and – Professor Dumbledore will explain this in greater detail later – basically, the universe split. In one reality, this one, Harry Potter died and his parents survived when Voldemort's killing curse towards them rebounded on him. In the other one, the universe I am from, James and Lily Potter died and Harry survived a killing curse aimed at him, which again rebounded on Voldemort."

The young man took a deep breath. "I am Harry Potter." Shocked murmurs had followed, but he had not paid attention. "I haven't come back from the dead, but I have somehow crossed the lines between the two separate universes yesterday evening. Now, Professor Dumbledore will explain his guesses about how that came to pass."

And Dumbledore had explained. Molly thought now that it was the greatest show of respect ever given to him that the members of the Order had actually listened. In the long discussion that followed (more of a questions and answers session, really) he and the young man who called himself Harry Potter had managed to convince most of the audience. The last doubts had been dispersed when both Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape had performed a complicated spell designed to reveal a true identity and had declared themselves convinced by the results.

When Molly had thought that nothing would be able to surprise her further, Harry Potter had spoken again. He had explained how in his world, You-Know-Who had regained a body and returned to power, starting a second war. The story of how he, a muggle-born classmate of Ron's, who was also present and (_Merlin!_) Ron himself had managed to finally defeat him, had been the most outlandish of the evening. Another, even longer round of questions and doubts to be answered was following.

Dumbledore had presented two items, one burned beyond recognition and one still intact, and had explained that they had already started the road towards the ultimate destruction of You-Know-Who, but would need help with the rest of them. A lot of details had followed, but Molly only remembered that they had asked for Bill's help specifically for something involving Gringotts.

Finally, at the end of the meeting, Harry Potter had spoken again. "In my universe, we managed to defeat Voldemort in the end, but the costs have been too high, and it was never really over, because the Death-Eaters continued their fight, and the death-toll rose even higher. As long as Voldemort is not really dead in this universe, he will search for and finally find a way to regain his power. The only hope we have is to be fast and make him mortal again without him noticing, so we might be able to kill him before he regains full power."

Merlin, Molly thought, please let us be fast enough and please don't let any of my family be hurt in the process.

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Thanks for the reviews and for the people who told me to continue the story, my brain needed some incentives to return to this plot.

Review, please?


	13. Chapter 12b: After the Meeting Hermione

Disclaimer: Not mine, Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling!

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After the Meeting: Hermione

Hermione Granger was in full planning mode. As much as the invitation to this meeting had surprised her, the information revealed had been even more astonishing. She believed it, of course. Professor Dumbledore had explained and two of her former teachers, the professors McGonagall and Snape, had confirmed. Furthermore, she had read something about Parallel Universes before, although she had disregarded it at that time.

The explanations had been fascinating, although the idea that she had been part of the close-knit group of friends, who had been instrumental in the final defeat of You-Know-Who, surprised her. She had never had close friends. Certainly not in primary school where she had been not only a know-it-all, but a freak around which strange things seemed to happen, but neither in Hogwarts. In her house, she had been closest to Neville and Ginny, but none of them had been the `best mate´ she had hoped for. Maybe that was because she had spent so much time in the library. Both of them were quite popular, too, and had lots of other activities going on. She had learned mostly with a group of Ravenclaws, but as they were all in the same house except for her, she always felt like she was missing something when they laughed about insider jokes and talked about people she barely knew or incidents where she had not been present for.

Harry Potter had called Ron Weasley and her his best friends. Ron Weasley, who was always provoking her into spats and whom she had a secret crush on since fifth year! Sometimes – rarely – there had been incidents when she felt that they were actually closer than they knew themselves, for example when he had defended her against that git Draco Malfoy, who had called her a mudblood, or when they somehow ended up in trouble together (although she never really understood how that could happen, she actually liked rules). But most of the time they were bickering. There simply was no connection between them!

Sometimes during Harry's explanation when he talked about her, he had looked in her eyes and smiled, mostly when he was talking about her researching something, or stubbornly ploughing on with a topic, or having quarrels with Ron. She usually hated it when people laughed about her. The old saying `I am not laughing about you, I am laughing with you´ was hippogriff dung in her opinion, because she was never laughing at those times. But this evening, she had felt herself sharing Harry's smiles as if she knew his sense of humour exactly and was sharing the joke. As if she had done so countless times before. When he was talking about the victims of death-eaters who continued to fight after the Second War, as he called it, she had the distinct feeling that her … well, her other self, she supposed, was among them and that Harry was mourning her deeply. How she could find the thought of Harry's reaction to her own death so comforting was a mystery to her.

She had been asked to join the Professors Dumbledore, Snape and Lupin in finding out anything she could about horcruxes in general, a task that was perfect for her, although she was almost sure there were no books about them in the Library at Hogwarts, for she had never read about them before.

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Thanks to all the people who put my story on Alert or on Favorites and especially to those who reviewed!

I made a mistake while reuploading all the old chapters yesterday (instead of Chapter 9 I had put up Chapter 6 again) and areuh informed me about that - thank you very much! I corrected that mistake and all should be in order now.


	14. Chapter 12c: After the Meeting Snape

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter Universe belongs to JK Rowling.

AN: Some of you have asked whether I am planning to do canon pairings. If you need the answer so you can decide if you will continue reading this story, here it is: Yes I am, but as people here are missing vital experiences of the other universe, it will take some time and they might fit differently than in the books.

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After the Meeting: Snape

Severus Snape had a lot to think about. Tonight had been his first meeting as an official member of the Order of Phoenix, and it had been a … he was not sure what, but is was deeply disturbing.

His relationship with the Potters was ambiguous. He had not dared to approach Lily while she was mourning openly for her son, whose death he saw as his fault even if she never accused him of it, but he had watched over her from afar as much as possible. Seeing Potter devastated, but struggling with his own grief to help her, had diminished some of his hate. When he had finally apologized to Lily, she had accepted it and their friendship had gradually been rebuilt, but he still avoided meeting Potter whenever he could. Seeing them together reminded him too much of what he had lost. Furthermore, Potter was still close to Black, who had tried to kill him once.

When a doppelgänger of James Potter had stood up and the fateful prophecy which had played such an important part in his life had been shown, he had not known what to think. His eyes had flown to Lily, who had started straight ahead blindly. The following explanations had filled him with doubt and no talking of Dumbledore and the other had been able to convince him, until he had performed the identity revelation spell himself. No further doubt was possible. Lily had now been looking at her son with such love; he had immediately felt a sting of jealousy. It was just too similar to his nightmare from school times, which had actually come true.

From the following explanations he had barely heard anything; he was too occupied with searching and finding traits of Potter in the young man. Despite his mother's eyes, he was just as arrogant, as self-confident, as rule-breaking as his father. He heard bits and pieces (Tri-Wizard Champion, fighting Death-Eaters in his fifth year, breaking into Gringott's, for Merlin's sake!) which confirmed his assumptions. He was one of the sharpest questioners after this heroic tale with yet another Potter in the lead. Noticing that the others seemed to be filled with admiration made everything worse. A sneer had formed on his face.

The reaction was not as expected. Looking directly at him, Harry Potter had said very earnestly: "I know a lot of this sounds like bragging, but I am the first to admit that I got through most of it by a combination of outside help, sacrifices from others and sheer dumb luck. I did not choose the role I played in this. Had anyone been asking me – before, in between and after – I would have told them that I would much rather not be the one to defeat Voldemort, thank you very much. I would have preferred living a normal life with my parents or at least living a normal life without the constant threat of death for me and everyone around me. At least four people have literally died to protect me and countless of others died because they supported me. I lost so many people and in return I had to defeat the darkest wizard of all times and carry the burden of being famous for it. Believe me, in the best case you get a lot of admiring stares, crazy fans and things written about you in the papers that are not even half true. In the worst case you either are called an unstable, attention-seeking, delusional prat or you carry the hopes of the whole resistance on your shoulders. I never could decide which one was worse. I would happily give up all of these so-called rewards and not be the person in that damn prophecy! Unfortunately, I am so I just try my best and do what I have to."

It was a long and angry speech, but it shocked Severus out of his memories of the father and made him really take a look at the son. Maybe he was different from his father … from the way his father had been and was not anymore; he remembered that now.

When assignments were handed out, he was again surprised. Harry Potter did not only ask but insisted on him going with the group which would get the ring out of the Gaunt shack. Apparently, he needed to be there in case Dumbledore was fooling up. What, by Merlin's beard, had he done in that other universe to make Harry Potter trust him to be able to clean after Albus Dumbledore's mistakes?

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Thanks for putting this story on your favorites or on story alert and special thanks for reviewing!

The next week will be awfully buisy and I will be without a laptop for most of the time, the chances for an update are slime to none ... but as I have regained my motivation for this fic, I hope the break won't be too long :-)


	15. Chapter 12d: After the Meeting Ron

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

AN: Here you go, the proof of how motivating reviews can be!

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After the meeting: Ron

Ron was sitting on his bed in the London flat he shared with Dean, looking stunned at the card in his hands. The whole evening had been weird, but looking at this tangible proof of the incredible story …

In the beginning he had suspected a prank by Fred and George. Why would Professor Dumbledore summon him, Ron, to a meeting? When he apparated to the Burrow (not knowing exactly where the location of the meeting was, so he could not apparate there on his own and the floo access was blocked due to security reasons) and had found his whole family ready to go, he had amused himself by imagining the lecture that would await the twins from their Mum when the prank was revealed. Only when he saw several of his old Hogwarts teachers at the meeting, he had started to believe it was not a prank. While Dumbledore might be moved to help Fred and George, he could not imagine Professor McGonogal to agree to something like that. Add to that the presence of several well-known aurors … no, not even Fred and George would pull such a prank.

The story that was revealed at the meeting was incredible, scary, mind-numbing … and the idea that he himself was involved, had played such an important part … well, his `other self´ as Dumbledore had referred to the people in the other universe … he could not even find the right word to describe it.

For the first time in their acquaintance he even got the feeling that he was on one page with Hermione Granger. Miss Know-It-All had a look on her face when this Harry Potter guy – who for some reason should be called Carl for the time being – had announced the two of them to be his best friends, to be best friends themselves, that must have been just as stupid as his own.

Really, as if she would ever be his friend. She usually looked at him as if he was a beetle she could crush under her shoe when he talked to her. Why he always felt the need to make her notice him, he did not know. She was such a smart-ass. Know it all. Miss Head Girl. Teacher's Pet. Live by the Rules.

Well, ok, she was pretty. And kind, sometimes. All right, most of the time, if she was talking to someone besides him. She could even be funny in a sarcastic way, especially when he got her riled. Ron grinned, remembering one special occasion when she had almost slapped him. With red cheeks and sparkling eyes, dressing him down for shooing a first-year out of his favourite armchair in the common room, she was even prettier than normally.

But the most astonishing thing had happened at the end of the meeting. Harry-Carl saw him preparing to leave, had excused himself from a discussion with Remus Lupin and a pink haired woman and went over to talk to him.

"I want to give you something I think you might want to see." Harry-Carl had paused, looking a bit confused. "Well, at least your other self would want to see it, he was very proud when it came out …" And he had pulled the little card Ron was now holding in his hands out of his pocket and given it to Ron whose eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw what it was.

Leaving and apparating home was fuzzy. He was probably lucky not to have splintered during the process. Now, he again stared down at his own face, looking up at him from a chocolate frog card. The text below read:

_RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY_

_CURRENTLY TRAINING AS AN AUROR FOR THE BRITISH MINISTERY OF MAGIC_

_Most known for his essential role in the final defeat of the dark wizard Lord Voldemort (1998) together with his friends Harry James Potter and Hermione Jean Granger, Mr. Weasley also is a founding member of the secret organization _Dumbledore's Army_, dedicated to the fight against Lord Voldemort, and had a part in the events around the Philosopher's Stone in 1992, the solving of the mystery surrounding the Chamber of Secrets in 1993 and the battle of the Department of Mysteries in 1996. His hobbies include quidditch and chess._


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